AI voice generator free: ElevenLabs, Speechify, Fish Audio, Azure and OpenAI compared

Plans, prices and features checked on the official pages on October 31, 2026.

The best-known free AI voice generator is ElevenLabs, whose Free plan gives 10,000 credits a month, about 10 minutes of audio, with no credit card. Fish Audio, Speechify and Microsoft Azure Speech also have free tiers, but each caps something different: minutes, voice quality or characters.

The catch is usually the license. Several free plans allow personal use only, so check that before you publish anything.

What an AI voice generator does and which tool fits which job

An AI voice generator turns written text into spoken audio (text to speech). Some tools also convert one recording into another voice (voice changing) or copy a voice from a short sample (voice cloning).

The five products below cover the main cases:

• ElevenLabs: expressive voiceovers, a very large voice library and a voice changer.
• Fish Audio: shared community voices, cloning and character voices for games and stories.
• Speechify: listening to documents and web pages, including celebrity voices.
• Microsoft Azure Speech: a developer service with a free monthly character allowance.
• OpenAI text to speech API: built-in voices for developers who already use the OpenAI API.

ElevenLabs: The biggest voice library, with a free plan limited to personal use

According to ElevenLabs, its library holds more than 17,000 voices, and its models cover 90+ languages (Eleven v4), with Eleven v3 adding audio tags for emotional control. Its voice changer converts a recording into another voice from the library and supports 70+ languages.

The Free plan costs $0 and includes 10,000 credits per month, roughly 10 minutes, with 2 concurrent requests and 3 Studio projects. Unused credits do not roll over. ElevenLabs’ terms of use say free users may use the service for non-commercial purposes only, and the pricing page lists commercial licenses from the Starter plan up. The terms do not mention attribution requirements.

On cloning, the terms allow a voice model of your own voice or one you are authorized to share, and you must hold the rights to your input and output. For a longer assessment of the product, see our ElevenLabs review. ElevenLabs also makes music and sound effects; our guide to free AI music generators covers the usage rules there.

Fish Audio: A free tier built around shared voices and cloning

Fish Audio says its platform hosts over 2,000,000 voices uploaded and shared by users, and advertises cloning from about 15 seconds of audio. It also has a Character Voices offering for games, animation and interactive stories. The site does not mention anime voices specifically, and its language claims differ between pages (30+ on the home page, eight listed in the FAQ).

The Free plan gives 8,000 credits a month, up to 7 minutes of generation, up to 500 characters per generation and 3 public voice slots. Fish Audio’s pricing page shows a commercial-use line on the Free card, but its FAQ says free users can use generated content only for personal, non-commercial projects. Treat the free tier as non-commercial.

Speechify: Celebrity voices and a listening app, with the best voices behind Premium

Speechify is aimed at listening to text rather than producing voiceovers. Its free online tool advertises 1,000+ voices across 60+ languages, including celebrity voices such as Snoop Dogg and Gwyneth Paltrow, and shows no stated character or time cap.

The pricing page lists the free version as text to speech only, with up to 1.5x playback and 10 voices it describes as robotic-sounding. Premium costs $29 per month or $139 billed yearly, with up to 5x speed, 1000+ natural voices, voice typing, AI podcasts and AI summaries and chats.

Microsoft Azure Speech and the OpenAI API: Free or pay-as-you-go options for developers

Both are services for people building apps, not consumer websites.

Azure’s Speech pricing page lists a free (F0) tier of 0.5 million characters per month for Neural voices. The dollar prices for paid usage did not display on the page when read, so check the live page before budgeting.

OpenAI’s text to speech guide lists 13 built-in voices, including marin and cedar, which it recommends for best quality. The gpt-4o-mini-tts model accepts prompts to steer tone and speed. The guide states that gpt-4o-mini-tts, tts-1 and tts-1-hd are deprecated and will shut down on January 6, 2027, and recommends moving to gpt-realtime-2.1-mini through the Realtime API. It also requires a clear disclosure to end users that the voice is AI-generated. If you only want a spoken answer in a chatbot, see our comparison of ChatGPT plans.

Plans and prices side by side

Prices checked on October 31, 2026.

How to get started with a free AI voice generator

1. Pick the job: a voiceover, a document reader, or an app feature. Voiceovers suit ElevenLabs or Fish Audio, reading suits Speechify, and app features suit Azure or OpenAI.
2. Create a free account. ElevenLabs says no credit card is required, and its terms require a personal email address for non-commercial use.
3. Paste a short script and try several voices before spending credits. Credits are used per character, so test with one paragraph.
4. Download the audio and note the plan you used. Keep that record if you later publish the clip.
5. If the project is commercial, move to a paid plan first and generate again.

Celebrity, character and singing voices: What to know before you use them

Searches for celebrity, SpongeBob or David Attenborough voices usually lead to cloned or imitation voices. The sources read do not promise any specific cartoon or documentary voice. Speechify licenses named celebrity voices inside its own product, which is different from cloning one without permission.

ElevenLabs’ terms do not address celebrity voices directly in the section read, but they require that your input and output do not violate anyone’s rights. OpenAI’s custom voices need a speaker’s consent recording. Using a voice of a real person who has not agreed is the risky case, and the rules vary by country. For a tool that has no consent step, assume you need permission.

For songs, rap and singing, a text to speech tool is the wrong category. Use a music generator instead; our free AI music generator guide compares them.

Common questions